So recently I was introduced to a new way to single someone out. Putting your thumbs up. Now I’ve done the whole index finger on the nose thing (you know, the last one to put their finger on their nose has to -insert action here-), but I’ve never seen anyone use the idea that the last person to put their thumbs up has to -insert action here-. But you know, since I’m almost always the last one to catch on when these events occur, I’m always like, ok, whatever, sure. But you know, the events that night struck me differently. Not because I was the last one to put my thumbs up, but because we were going through this to figure out who was going to say grace.
Since when has the act of thanking our Heavenly Father for His provisions become such a menial task that we no longer do it willingly? It’s almost as if it is simply a requirement. If we stop and think about what we are really praying about, we should all be jumping up and down eager to thank our God for what he has provided.
I say this, yet when was the last time I stopped and thanked my Heavenly Father when I’m eating lunch alone, or with people who aren’t as devout? See, we are creatures of habit. My family would say grace at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners, and that was it. So it wasn’t in my upbringing to pray before every meal, only those really special ones where Mom and Nana would spend most of the morning in the kitchen cooking a ham, or a turkey, and some wide assortment of sides to go along.
To go along with this, there are a lot of us that struggle with praying out loud. We fear that we won’t say the right things. We worry about what the people around us may think. These fears are real, but they are also unwarranted. They are lies used to attempt to trip us up. However, it is still a real struggle to overcome these fears, and I can’t help but think that this is part of the reason why we don’t openly say grace. It is uncomfortable to confront these fears head-on. So instead we just single out someone else to say grace for all of us? Make someone else leave their comfort zone? Hmmm….What would Jesus do?
Consider the first several verses of John 13 when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. Notice verse 16,
I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
Was Jesus in his comfort zone when he got down and washed their feet? What about when he went to Calvary? Was that comfortable? If a servant is not greater than his master, then why shall we live comfortably?
Oh boy, I think I just opened a can of worms and could continue on with the idea of the “american dream”, but I’ll save that for later.
